Maintaining a healthy and safe workplace should always be a business’s top priority. And now, amidst the current COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, these efforts are more important than ever. Taking the proper steps to cultivate a healthier and safer work environment will provide peace of mind to your employees, partners, and customers while ensuring that your business remains open and compliant with federal, state, and local mandates. Most importantly, though, these efforts will protect your people from infection.

Here are seven ways to promote better workplace health and safety for your business.

How to Enhance Workplace Health and Safety

1. Establish a Health and Safety Plan
   

Achieving improved health and safety standards begins with a solid plan. This plan should be clear (so it is easily distributed and understood), well-budgeted, and based on the recommendations and regulations laid out by official health and safety organizations (i.e. OSHA, CDC, etc.). More specifically, this plan should include items such as:

• Disinfection and cleaning protocols
• Personal hygiene best practices
• Social distancing measures (i.e. moving desks at least six feet apart, creating foot traffic lanes, etc.)
• Distribution and required use of masks and other PPE (personal protective equipment)
• Measures for dealing with a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19 in the workplace
• Occupancy limitations
• ...and more

The more thorough your plan is, the better and faster you’ll be able to respond to various problems, make necessary adjustments, and keep your people safe.

2. Educate and Train Your Employees

Having a plan in place is important, but properly executing that plan is what truly matters. For this to occur, all of your people must be on the same page -- employees, managers, in-house and/or outsourced janitorial services, etc. Everyone should receive relevant training so they remain aware of the part they have to play in keeping others (and themselves) safe and healthy. If even one person is out of the loop, they can put the entire workplace at greater risk of infection.

3. Perform Regular Facility Health Risk Analysis

All businesses must remain vigilant when it comes to preventing the entrance and/or spread of COVID-19 and other illnesses. That said, certain facilities (and areas within these facilities) pose a greater transmission risk than others based on their size, occupancy, operations, number of high-touch surfaces, ventilation systems, and more. This is why it’s so important for businesses to conduct routine facility health risk analyses, carefully taking into consideration the various factors that might put their people in harm’s way, and making necessary adjustments.

4. Maintain Strong Communication

Over time, individuals are likely to loosen up their behaviors, take shortcuts, and/or forget about some of their responsibilities. To prevent this slackening from occurring, maintain strong communication with everyone in your organization. You might hold brief, daily meetings (with proper distance, of course) to go over recent updates regarding community spread, industry regulation changes, etc. Additionally, you might post signage around the workplace, reminding employees to maintain social distance, wear a mask, wash their hands properly, and more. These efforts will help keep everyone committed to greater workplace health and safety.

5. Conduct Routine Health Surveillance

When it comes to stopping the spread of COVID-19, keeping tabs on people’s health is a crucial step. It’s true, of course, that COVID-19 can spread asymptomatically, and that some businesses will not have the budget nor infrastructure to provide daily health checkups for all their employees. Still, you should do what you can to track everyone’s general health as often as possible -- you might take people’s temperatures before entering the workplace, ask about any symptoms, etc.

6. Provide Necessary Health and Safety Supplies

Proper workplace health and safety also depends on the availability of certain supplies and equipment, including EPA-registered disinfectants, hand soaps and sanitizers, masks, gloves, and so on. Maintaining an ample supply of these items will make it easier to keep surfaces clean and disinfected, and will help ensure that employees wear the appropriate gear to prevent transmitting COVID-19 and other illnesses.

7. Invest in Professional Disinfection Services

Even with the necessary supplies on hand, your business might lack the personnel, resources, and/or expertise to properly clean and disinfect your facility on a regular basis. If this is the case, it might be wise to partner up with disinfection/cleaning professionals. They may offer more advanced disinfection methods such as disinfection misting services, antimicrobial barrier technology, electrostatic disinfection, and more. Plus, having dedicated disinfection staff on hand will allow you to keep your operations flowing without interruption.

Workplace health and safety are of the utmost importance, especially during these difficult times. If you need help optimizing and/or executing your strategy, The Budd Group can help.

For more information regarding COVID-19 and recommendations for environmental cleaning and disinfection from the CDC, click here.